Photo: Traders on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange watch Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s news conference Can the Federal Reserve keep raising interest rates and defeat the nation’s worst bout of inflation in 40 years without causing a recession? Not according to a new research paper that concludes that such an “immaculate
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday that if the U.S. job market further strengthens in the coming months or inflation readings accelerate, the Fed might have to raise its benchmark interest rate higher than it now projects. Powell’s remarks followed the government’s blockbuster report last week that employers added 517,000 jobs in January, nearly
The inflation genie is now out of the bottle, and central bankers meeting recently in Jackson Hole, Wyo., found many culprits to blame for inflation: pandemic disrupted supply chains, slower rates of technological change, productivity challenges, demographic transition, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, etc. This smorgasbord of explanations is designed to deflect attention from the
Arizona’s unemployment rate fell to 3.3% in March, the lowest rate in almost a half-century, according to numbers released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The White House said Arizona was one of 17 states whose jobless rates hit “historic lows” in March, as the U.S. economy claws its way back from the pandemic.
If you find the current economy a bit confusing, don’t worry: So does the nation’s top economic official, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. At a highly anticipated news conference Wednesday, Powell said the Fed was sticking by its bedrock economic forecast: COVID-19 will eventually fade, which, in turn, will enable supply chain bottlenecks to unsnarl.
Restaurant and hotel owners struggling to fill jobs. Supply-chain delays forcing up prices for small businesses. Unemployed Americans unable to find work even with job openings at a record high. Those and other disruptions to the U.S. economy — consequences of the viral pandemic that erupted 18 months ago — appear likely to endure, a